Sean James

Director of Energy ResearchMicrosoft

Sean James runs Microsoft’s datacenter research and development program within the Microsoft Cloud Infrastructureand Operations group. MCIO provides the foundational cloud infrastructure for over 1,000,000,000 Customers,20,000,000 Businesses, 200+ Microsoft online services, in 90 Markets. Sean drives new datacenter technology forMicrosoft’s next generation data centers including the evaluation, development, and testing.Sean joined Microsoft in 2006 to manage one of Microsoft’s datacenters. Later, he joined the construction team andoversaw the design and building of new Microsoft data centers.Prior to joining Microsoft, Sean worked in datacenter management overseeing the day-to-day maintenance and repairoperations for both IT hardware and critical infrastructure, such as electrical infrastructure and cooling equipment. Priorto joining Microsoft, Sean served in the US Navy Submarine Fleet as an electrician.Sean holds many patents related to datacenters and energy, a computer science degree, and is a certified ProjectManagement Professional from the Project Management Institute. He enjoys spending time with his family, guitar, andtechnology.